


Tethered

by sex-chan (ultraviolets)



Category: Persona 4, Shin Megami Tensei Series
Genre: Dubious Consent, Dysfunctional Relationships, Jealousy, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Polyamory, Sibling Incest, Threesome - M/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-16
Updated: 2015-02-27
Packaged: 2018-03-13 04:34:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3368054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ultraviolets/pseuds/sex-chan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I know you want me to want you, I want to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. the space between

**Author's Note:**

> if I told you this fic came to me during a spiritual journey, would you believe me? truthfully, the high was only half to blame. [deimos](http://echorebirth.tumblr.com) wanted this one more than i did.

I’m thinking about Yoyogi Park, 2003. I think it was Winter. I remember that my face was numb and my tears were colder than usual, so it must have been. Nine is the age where you start making friends and fumbling through serious relationship stuff, like jealousy and loneliness. Object constancy is a crucial part of this learning curve. It reminds us that when Souji goes to play basketball without me, it doesn’t mean that he’s not coming back after the game’s over. When Mizutani-kun picks Souji for his team and I don’t get picked at all, it doesn’t mean that the entire team forgot me in my absence. Unfortunately, when your parents both have jobs that require frequent relocation and your childhood is spent saying goodbye to temporary home after temporary home, object constancy can get lost in the luggage.

Mizutani-kun. Ken-kun. I don’t remember the other names, but their faces have become synonymous with disdain over the years. The first time you feel hated, really despised by someone, it terrifies you. When I told Souji that his friends only tolerated me because of him, he got defensive. Critical. _You should talk to them, more_ , I think is what he said. _You’re too quiet, Yu._ I only wanted to talk to Souji, anyway. At nine years old, I couldn’t possibly understand Souji’s constant need to be surrounded by people. But I knew that Souji wanted friends and I couldn’t make any without him.

 

“How was work?”

My twin brother Souji and I have been an inseparable unit since birth, diligently carving crop circles in the fields of each others lives.

“There are rumors that our regional manager’s gonna go off the deep end, soon,” I tell him, changing the channel to the business report.

He sits down to watch tv, claiming his usual spot next to me on the couch. “You can’t be serious? Do you have anyone lined up to replace him?”

“The sales reports from the Inaba store have improved since Hanamura-san’s son took over, so there’s been favouritism among the seniors.” Souji’s stopped breathing. “But no one’s officially on record for the position.”

He shifts in his seat and his excitement spills, all at once, onto me. “Oh! About him!”

We’ve been told that as a pair we’re hard to read, but Souji is far more expressive than I am. His eyes sparkle when he’s happy, like he’s seeing God on the surface of the sun. The hem of his jeans raise when he fists the denim at his knees and his leg hair is the same light color as mine.

“Who?” I ask, kind of knowing already.

“Yosuke Hanamura. The old manager’s son.”

He knows he’s not keeping anything a secret by thumbing his quiet smile, but he doesn’t want to be secretive. We talk between the lines, in an embryonic body language unique to us and us alone.

“The new manager,” I nod.

“Remember how I offered him that discount, if he wanted to come in for a massage?”

Another nod, slightly less perceptible now to shy away from headbobbing. “Do you think he’s cute?”

“He’s very cute. He told me he’s in love with me.”

Hanamura-san? We’ve never been formally introduced, but I know him. Dorky smiles that make him look nervous, sometimes. When he talks, it looks like the mask he’s wearing is so heavy it makes his face ache. Souji fell for him months ago in the modest way Souji does everything, like it’s no big deal, it doesn’t change anything. Yosuke is fake in ways that Souji is not and that could, potentially, change everything. At least for as long as it takes us to stitch each other up in the aftermath.

“What’d you tell him?”

Souji pillows his head in my lap, whiteblond hair across my thigh. “I told him I’d have to talk it over with you, first.”

“You told him about me?”

“No. I just said I’d talk it over.”

 

Souji brings him over two days later. I didn’t get a warning ahead of time, so I changed into a long tshirt and shorts. My head is still wet from my shower, dripping audibly onto our leather couch. Souji giggles when he enters, dragging a starstruck Hanamura behind him. Around the Junes Inc. fax machine, my senpai gossip about the overly pampered heir to his Daddy’s throne, wheezing from raised nostrils as he small talks his way through dinner and dessert. He’s pretty in a brand name way. High maintenance, if the decorative ankle bracelet is any indication. Why is he carrying a backpack like a grade schooler?

“Woah, am I seeing double?” he jokes, scared looking.

Souji pulls him into the doorway and tries to distract him from where he keeps glancing nervously over at me on the couch. I resist the urge to wink at him. Souji is sweet, touching up his collarbone and neck. I watch Hanamura’s hand grip his waist, his eyes focused on Souji now, who's quietly saying, “Kiss me, kiss me.” It’s obviously their first kiss. Hanamura’s vibrating when he releases him, floating over to the couch behind Souji. He’s so dazed, he’s unable to look at me or even really see me.

“Hanamura-san,” Souji starts. “This is my twin brother, Yu.”

Yasogami High School, 2011. Hanamura remembers me. Souji may have forgotten him, but I haven’t. At work, Yosuke Hanamura has a signature and a store number, but I will always think of him as the dork with the bike from Inaba. Until recently, he was compartmentalized with the rest of Souji’s jilted admirers. Souji never even knew he existed to begin with.

He’s nervous again, laughing awkwardly at the floor. “Twins, huh?”

As if he didn’t know. I’m not going to out him as a fraud right away, though. I let Souji control the conversation until they’re sitting on either side of me, Souji holding Hanamura’s hand as if he’s consoling him. It’s probably the best way to keep him in the room as he explains, with me as witness, the conditions of his attraction. I’ve heard the proposition (The Speech) too many times to count. Every time Souji falls in love I have to hear it. He starts with “I really like you and I want you to like me, too” and slowly weaves it into “Yu, too.”

_If you sleep with me, you have to sleep with Yu, too. If you date me, you have to date Yu, too. If you love me, you have to love Yu, too._

He pulls me in like an extension of his body, but presents it as a terminal illness. Something unconditional and permanent. I am the elephant in the room. It’s much more affectionate than it sounds.

“I’ll understand if you don’t want to,” Souji finishes.

The way he asks, it’s a wonder more people don’t say yes just to please him. Hanamura pulled away from Souji five minutes ago and has since crossed his arms. What’s more embarrassing for him? Getting caught lying red-handed or the proposition Souji’s making?  He looks up at me with this highly critical gaze, like I just told him his favourite band sucks. Although it probably does, since he’s wearing a designer AC/DC tshirt in black.

“You’re fine with this?” he asks me.

Souji nudges me, signaling that I have to answer. Hanamura’s aged gracefully, I’ll give him that. He doesn’t look as parasitic as he did in high school, when all he ever had to contribute to conversation was a self-aggrandizing commentary about girls.

I tell him the same thing I tell everyone else. “Souji likes you. You make him happy. So I’m fine with it, as long as he keeps smiling, Hana…-chan.”

Predictably, the nickname makes him bristle. “Please don’t call me that.”

“Sorry. Thought you’d appreciate it, since you’re dressed like a teenager.”

“What?!” He squawks like an affronted bird.

This is when Souji, the mediator, steps in. “Listen, Hanamura-san, it’s fine. Forget I said anything. Let’s just be friends, ok?”

Effortlessly, Souji wilts between us with all the daytime television melodrama expected of someone so regal and in control. Hanamura shrinks away, visibly stewing in anxiety and not knowing what to do with his hands. I ruffle Souji’s hair and wink at him like we’re the only ones in the room.

 

Souji doesn’t handle unreturned phonecalls very well. They launch him into obsessive compulsion. He hasn’t mentioned Hanamura in three days, but the bathroom has never looked cleaner, so I don’t bring it up. It’s when there’s nothing else of our small apartment to clean that he turns his restless eyes to me. Little slaps on the back of the hand when I take too much rice at dinner. Checking the dishes after I’ve washed them, just to “make sure.” Then there’s the constant phone-checking all through the night and his unnecessary pillow fluffing. When he scrubs the toothpaste out of the sink bowl before I’ve even finished brushing my teeth, I mentally snap.

Spit. Rinse. Souji scrubs the bowl. Spit.

“Have you spoken to Hanamura?” I ask.

“He won’t return my messages.”

“How many did you send?”

He takes another towel off the rack to be folded again, drops it and has to bend to pick it up.

“Just three.” He can tell that I don’t believe him. “I’ve learned my lesson, okay?”

They were probably pretty tame. Souji’s mellowed out since high school. Hanamura, though. It’s disappointing that he bailed so fast. After a year of repeatedly crashing his bike to get Souji’s attention, you’d think he’d take advantage of a second chance. Now he’s just another one of Souji’s bad days.

“Give him time,” I say. “He’ll come crawling back.”

 

Hanamura does, in fact, come crawling back. Souji wakes me up in the middle of the night to show me the text, which might as well have been written by a five year old. Something like,  
SRY NARUKAMI-SAN  
I KNO UR ASLEEP BUT I’VE BEEN THINKING  
ABOUT HOW 2 RESPOND 2 U AND I RLLY WANT  
2 B UR FRIEND STILL. WE CAN WORK IT OUT  
with a nightmarish winking emoticon at the end. It goes without saying that Souji finds this charming. He starts bringing Hanamura home with him after work.

They’re not dating, not sleeping together, but I’ll come home to find them breaking off pieces of chocolate to handfeed each other, Souji calling me over to lick the melted goo off his fingers. They’ll wrestle over who won the last round of Tekken and the dispute will go on for hours, till Souji is hiding behind doors for the element of surprise. Aside from kicking Hanamura out of my seat on the couch, I don’t interact with them.

“Thanks for the meal,” Hanamura mutters into his chopsticks at dinner. He stopped complimenting my culinary skills after I brushed him off the third time, but they remain unstated in the way he passive-aggressively asks for seconds.  

Souji is a magician of sorts at the table. He keeps Hanamura from feeling awkward in my presence, enough to get him to open up. I’ve discovered that he definitely does have generic music taste (despite his near constant boasts to the contrary). He’s also obsessed with the idea of making music himself, insofar as funding his own EP.

“So, Chie thinks we should stick to five songs, but I dunno,” he whines into his curry. “I really like the instrumentals for Love Spider.”

Ah yes, the #1 hit track off Pyro Jack’s debut record! Full of soulful whining, the song laments a romantic hero caught in his manipulative girlfriend’s web of deceit. I shovel in a large bite of rice to keep myself from bursting into laughter. Wouldn’t want to offend Hana-chan, not when he’s so sensitive. Souji would disapprove. Souji would glare at me from across the table, beaming subliminal **PLAY NICE!**  signals from his eyes. As it is, he’s already caught on to my annoyance and is now clearing his throat in that authoritative way of his.

“Yosuke, how are things with those girls at work?”

Yosuke? They’re using first names now? I guess it shouldn’t surprise me after Souji started giving him free massages in the privacy of our room. He looks caught off guard by Souji’s inquiry, probably because Souji already knows how things are at work, so why is he asking? Hanamura sends his gaze apprehensively over to me.

“You’ve been complaining about those two associates, right?” Souji presses. “The ones who don’t take their job seriously?”

Hanamura clenches, nervously rotating his chopsticks like we’ll get distracted by his hands and change the subject. He has bony wrists and long fingers that never stop moving, as if they need to be touching something at all times.

“I don’t know how to get through to them! They don’t take me seriously, you know? I never thought I’d say this, but teenagers are so hard to deal with!”

“I wonder what kind of teenager our Hana-chan was?” I ask Souji, who smirks back at me. Sinful thing.

“O-our?!” Hanamura exclaims, just as I thought he would. “Whaddya mean ‘our’? And stop calling me that!”

Which is my cue to get up. I collect everyone’s dishes while Souji shushes him. It doesn’t work.

“I’ll do them!”

“What?” I ask, pulling the dishes away from where Hanamura’s grabbing at them. “You don’t have to.”

When I turn the sink on, he glances back to Souji and in that moment he’s transparent. Of course he wants to be helpful if it means sucking up to him. _Oh, Hana-chan, you’re so polite. So responsible. So_ selfless _._

“Sit down.”

Suddenly, those long fingers from dinner have found their way to the crook of my arm, right where the foamy dishwater has started to crawl up my rolled sleeve. It’s itchy and distracting, definitely happening, even though Hanamura isn’t acknowledging it or pulling away.

“You cooked,” he insists, awfully close to my face. “It’s the least I can do.”

“Fine.” I pull my arms out of the water, flicking droplets onto the tile floor as I walk away. “Souji, let’s see if the game’s started.”

Soccer. Easy to follow, predictable. Best of all, Hanamura doesn’t know the rules.

 

Summer is an erotic season. Perspiration beading on bared skin, flashes of collarbones and the backs of knees. Long nights spent outside again, swatting gnats and mosquitoes off each other’s arms and legs. Souji and I alone, climbing up and up the stairs of our building, past our room and to the roof. He collapses first, spread eagled against the wall. I hand him our convenience store bag and he pulls out a topsicle. We got cherry, this time. I open the first can of our twelve pack. The beer is too cold down my throat, but I keep swallowing until half of it is gone.

“Thirsty?” Souji asks, offering me the ice cream. I lean down and take a bite out of it.

“I’m hot.”

Souji pouts his lips through a smile, this mischievous little downturning of his mouth that makes him look young. I could never pull off half the expressions he uses against me, regardless of having the same face.

“Yosuke thinks so, too.”

“What are you talking about?” I ask into my beer can.

Souji scoffs. “Oh, come on. Don’t act like you can’t tell he’s interested in you.”

I roll my eyes and drop the conversation, but as the cans empty out, Souji gets chatty. Stars wink into view as Souji wraps himself up in my sweater like it’s a blanket. He’s been talking about something for a while now, but I haven’t been listening. The sound of his voice is drowned out by cicadas and traffic, but I like watching the words form on his face, ideas coming to him as he speaks, like he’s reading from some cosmic plan only he can see. Truthfully, its gotten a little chilly, so I shove my hands up the back of Souji’s shirt. He flinches and chokes on an embarrassed chuckle.

“Why do you get so handsy when you’re drunk?” he admonishes, pulling at my wrists.

“Why do you get so chatty when you’re drunk?”

I don’t realize he’s climbing on me until he’s already straddling my knees. I push my fingers against his face and into his mouth, feeling the sharp edge of teeth and the wetness of tongue. Someone says “gross”, one or both of us, but I pull my fingers out and wipe them on his chest like it was me.

“He thinks you hate him.”

Who? What? I remember his face before his name. He comes to me in flashes of cheek and teeth, this smiling, false thing. Yosuke Hanamura. Thinks I...hate him?

“I don’t hate him,” is what I say at once. “I begrudge him his time with you. I’m disappointed in him.”

I don’t even know if this is true or if it’s what I want Souji to hear, but it feels like the right thing to say at the time, like it can be true if I make it. Souji’s looking down at me, searching my face in the moonlight. We are hollow. All the space between my chest and his is vacant, somehow. Wasted. I think, drunkenly in that moment, that I’ll be fine with dying as long as Souji consumes me. I want to crawl inside him, slide quickly down his throat. One body to fit our one mind, is what I think. There is nothing I don’t know about him.

“But you don’t disapprove of him, do you?” It’s not a question.

Souji’s unsmiling face, so serious and familiar. So identical to the one I wear every day. I hate it. Cupping his cheek, I brush a stray eyelash from under his eye. The velvet lid quivers beneath my thumb.

“Shouldn’t you be asking him if he disapproves of me?”

 

As it turns out, Hana-chan cuts and dyes his own hair. Souji puts off going to our usual salon for four months, until my bangs are so in my face I have to clip them up to concentrate. By the time Souji suggests that Hanamura cut our hair, I’m desperate enough not to think twice. He’s really gone all out with it though, setting up a “station” at our table, complete with a bowl of warm water and towels. I’m on the couch until he’s done with Souji, playing Starcraft and half-listening to the conversation they’re trying to include me in. Something about getting Hanamura a job at the spa as a hairdresser.

“I can see it now,” I murmur just loud enough to be heard. “Hana-chan fussing over aging housewives, clouded by hairspray as he shapes the same bob again and again, a slave to the cosmetics industry and divorcees everywhere.”

He nearly cuts off Souji’s ear when he replies. “This, coming from King of the Closet Gays!”

“I’m not gay” sounds louder out loud than it did in my head. Hanamura can’t even respond to this, just snaps his scissor closed and stares at me like he can’t tell if I’m lying or not. That makes two of us, actually. Souji snaps his towel to reign in our attention.

“You’re done,” Hanamura tells him, brushing off his shoulders with a tenderness reserved for lovers.

“Yu needs a cut, too,” Souji says, matter of fact. “You don’t mind, do you?”

Hanamura winces. “You ask that a lot.”

Predictably, Souji gets up to wrap his arms around him. He puts his face in his neck, saying things like “c’mon” and “please?” I hear “Partner, please” and my heartrate spikes, a whitehot flare of jealousy igniting inside me. I could burn up the couch, make our building reek of burnt leather for weeks. It’s inexcusable how badly I react to jealousy. Completely incapable of handling this, my eyes remain locked on Hanamura’s hands as they slide up to Souji’s elbow, just below his sleeve.

     Partner.     _Partner._

           **Partner**.

“Partner.” What betrayal in a word that I’ve never thought of before. Hanamura agrees to cut my hair, but I have to drag myself into the seat. The first thing he does is rip the clip from my bangs, using enough force to make it hurt.

“Do you wear these at work?” he asks, dangling the hair tie in front of my face. The little beads glitter in the overhead light. “Ridiculous.”

“I was waiting for you to cut my hair, _Hana-chan_.”

He makes a scoffing sound, clutching my scalp with the tips of his fingers and turning my head away. He touches me like it’s unbearable. His nails press into my temples and he lightly hits me when I move. Suddenly, I’m aware of all the nerve endings on my scalp. I can feel his fingers everywhere, the blades of the scissor a part of him as well. When it touches my neck or the shell of my ear, I shiver. He pushes my head down, digs in hard with his fingers.

“Is there a problem?” I flinch, turning around to glare at him.

His expression catches me off guard. I wonder if his cheeks would get pinker if I pressed my fingers against them. He clenches his hand into a fist so I won’t notice that he’s trembling.

“I’m just tired,” he says, avoiding my eyes. “I’m not used to doing it to other people.”

Without thinking, I grab his hand and bring it back to my head, turning around in my seat. “Finish.”

I don’t let go until I feel his fingers uncurl in my hair.

Afterward, Souji runs off to shower. Hanamura made a wisecrack about joining him, but quickly retracted the offer when I made to get up as well. We’re doing the dishes together, just the two of us, but it’s not suffocating. Our skin slides together occasionally when we reach across the sink for something.

“Hanamura.”

“Hm?”

“Are those girls at work still giving you trouble?”

His entire body deflates, but he finishes scrubbing the wok. I take it from him and start drying.

“I’ve talked to the department head and we’ve decided it’s time to let them go,” he says, crossing his arms.

It’s a comfortable, protective stance for him, usually. But now he’s not hiding behind it. He’s thinking, like everyone else has the answers except him. He looks sincere like this, all the edges of his personality rounded out in a cohesive, honest expression. He looks believable.

“I’ve never fired anyone before. Half of the staff still doesn’t take me seriously as their boss. Until now, I’ve always just been The Manager’s Son, you know?”

He looks so serious that I lose the heart to tell him how we refer to him in my office. “Hanamura’s son” over coffee, “Hanamura’s heir” in the staff meeting. Daddy’s boy who got out of college with a magic coattail ride. He doesn’t look that way now, though.

“Some of the people I’m supposed to be managing helped raised me. They remember me from when I was a teenager stocking shelves.”

I hang the wok, thinking about how to respond to him. This is, in a way, our first conversation.

“You have to understand that no matter what you do, you’re ruining that person’s day.”

He laughs the most pathetic sound I’ve ever heard and scratches under a wet patch on his sleeve.

“Great. That makes me feel so much better.”

“No, listen.” Why does he look so defeated? “Once you’ve accepted that, you can stop being nervous about it. These girls understood the consequences of their actions and chose not to care. Why should you?”

Tipping his head back, he assesses me as if seeing me for the first time. The shallow pool of water remaining in the sink gets noisily sucked down the drain. When he lightly steps on my toe I start breathing again.

“Is this how you made it to Corporate, even though you’re my age?”

“The internship helped.”

Hanamura laughs, a bellyache of a sound, his neck craned and long like he’s waiting for me to mark it.

 

I’m adrift in the center of this black ocean, treading to keep my head above water. Darkness is choking me, filling up my lungs like a bad cough. In between periods of drowning, I hear Yosuke Hanamura’s voice. I can see him in the sound of my brother’s name, lit up from the inside so he’s golden, burning up like one of the sun’s in Souji’s eyes. How many suns have we revolved around over the years?

I’m eight years old tonight, with Souji’s favourite eraser pressed into the crevice of my palm. His lips are spitty against my ear as he says, _I carved my name into it so everyone will know I gave it to you._

Ten years old and we’re feeding each other like we’ve always done it, pushing bites between each other’s teeth.

Seventeen and Kanji Tatsumi is underneath me, crying into Souji’s hand as he takes my virginity deep inside him. Souji behind him, whispering _you like him, right? You like Yu’s cock just as much as mine._  No one believed it.

There’s a whirlpool of unbelievable lies churning inside me. Kanji Tatsumi. Naoto Shirogane. Kou Ichijo. Naoki Konishi. Yosuke Hanamura, rocking in Souji’s lap with his words in his ear. I hear it again, this hissing sound like _Souji, Souji_.

When I get home from work, Souji has Hanamura wrapped so tight around him he’s practically wearing him. The sound of the door shutting behind me spooks them, making Hanamura flinch against Souji’s mouth. He pulls away and my brother pants, chasing his lips with a needy sound. I head straight for our room, but Souji stops me as I pass them on the couch.

“Wait, Yu,” he calls.

I already know what he wants.

“Come here.”

I do as I’m told, secretly wanting to. Standing by their side, I cast them both in shadow, Hanamura’s face eclipsed. He’s still flushed from his makeout session and he looks up at me with blurry eyes. Souji reaches up and pets my chest reassuringly.

“Yosuke,” he says. “You have to kiss him, too.”

I could be gagging, puking blood on both of them, soaking them in the last four gallons of my life for all the attention they pay me. Hanamura whines, truly whines, and collapses against Souji’s chest.

“ _Why?_ ” he asks. “Can’t it just be you and I?”

“Now, now,” Souji coos. “Don’t be selfish. You love me, right?”

“You know I do, Partner.”

“Only this part of me. Only the _Souji_ part.” Truthfully, I’ve forgotten where the Yu part begins.

Defeated, Hanamura sits up. When he looks at me, his eyes are sharp. His hand fists at the bottom of my dress shirt, right above the waistband of my pants. He pushes his lips against mine and it’s warm, hot. My hand comes up to his neck like its desperate to touch him there and my fingers are in his hairline. Tongues taste slippery when they don’t belong to you. I pull his head back and his neck smells like laundry detergent and bodyheat. His blood is frantic under my lips. I suck his pulse point, aware of his hands squeezing my stomach and a thigh against mine. I look down and see Souji rubbing his lap, making him gasp. My mouth left a mark on his neck; there’s a garish redness where I sucked. I touch Souji’s arm and he smiles at me as he unzips Hanamura’s fly.

“W-wait!”

But Souji’s already taken his dick out and it’s red at the tip. I lean all the way down and wrap my throat around it. From this angle, it’s hard to get it all the way down, but I rotate my shoulders and swallow his girth. He’s not that big, not as big as the soccer captain, anyway, and I could handle that fine. Souji told me so, afterward. Said it was his favourite part, even more than when Souji fucked him. Above me, Hanamura jerks. Souji kisses him, making noise when he licks him. It’s hard to concentrate with Hanamura shallowly thrusting into my throat, eager for more of my tongue.

“You like Yu’s mouth?” Souji asks, petting my hair.

“I’d like yours, better.” Defiant even when he’s leaking down my throat.

“It is mine. Look.”

There’s a moan of realization as Hanamura buries his hands in my hair, making my erection twitch in my work slacks.

“He’s beautiful, isn’t he?” Souji’s whispering. “Exactly like me.”

I take my mouth off of him, looking up to see his flushed face twenty times better than I remembered. He looks at me and parts his lips like he’s about to cry. Poor thing.

“Come for me, _Partner_ ,” I mock.

He comes all over my face.

 

Ai Ebihara calls me afterward, so I excuse myself to our room. She’s in tears after coming home from a bad date with her boss’s son. Kid is like, six years younger than her and she still gets surprised when he’s too handsy. I walk over and open my window, letting the summer night in. She wants us to come over, I can hear it in her voice before she even asks if Souji is busy. I peek out my open door and see him asleep on the couch, Hanamura watching him with nebulas forming in his brain, galaxies being built around the idea of Souji and the concept of Love.

“We’re busy tonight, Ai-chan.”

“When are you going to bed?” she sniffles.

“Late. I’m sorry.”

Hanamura appears. He leans against the doorframe with his arms crossed, defensive for real. Ai is still talking, but I missed most of what she said.

“I’m sorry. Tomorrow is fine. I’m hanging up, now. Good night.” I clap my phone shut and then, “Hey.”

“Hey.”

Hanamura shuffles his feet and looks at me through his bangs.

“Come here,” I say.

He listens to me and sits nervously on our bed. It’s obvious he’d rather be standing. He’s one of those guys who stands around, you can tell. Needs to be picking at things constantly, coming off as only half-listening. He’s been in this room before, but never with me. Can he tell which things are mine and which are Souji’s? Does he look at the collection of Law & Order DVDs and know they’re mine? When he sees our autographed Yani portrait, who does he think it’s made out to? What does he think when he looks at me and sees his lover’s face? My stomach rolls.

“How’d it go with your associates?” I ask.

He smiles and it’s probably the most amazing thing to happen tonight, even more than his cum hitting my cheek, because it’s one of those goofy, genuine expressions he only ever shows Souji.

“I just finished up the paperwork for their termination yesterday.”

I pull back, holding my breath. “Really?”

There’s hair in his eyes. “Yeah, really.”

I reach out and pull his bangs off his face, exhaling under what feels like ten thousand pounds of emotion. “Good.”

“Doesn’t it bother you?”

“What?”

Hanamura keeps looking at me, completely unafraid. “Having to do what Souji says all the time.”

“I want what Souji wants. Our objectives are the same.”

“Yeah, but, what if you wanted to be with someone Souji didn’t want to be with? Instead of having to do things with me, you’d rather be with her, right? That girl you like?”

I think about him: under me, above me, next to me.

“Even our differences in taste overlap. Compromise usually gets us what we both want.” I tap his knee. “Your turn. Why are you staying in a relationship where you have to pretend to like someone you hate?”

For a second he looks like he’s not going to let me change the subject. He pulls away, physically and emotionally. It scares me. Why am I afraid of him walking out? Does the idea of him leaving bother me so much? Something in my eyes brings him back. He runs a hand through his hair and looks up, away from me.

“I’ve only been in love twice,” he says. “The first time, it was unrequited. I was going to confess to her, but...she died. It wasn’t until her funeral that I found out she hated me. Was only pretending to like me. I fell so in love with her, but she didn’t want anything to do with me. I made a total ass out of myself.”

I want him to stay. Decades of gifts flash through my mind. Exchanged birthday presents, shared Valentine’s Day chocolate, chicken pox, blankets, ice cream, tshirts, secrets, girlfriends, boyfriends, sex-friends, the flu. Out of all the things Souji has shared with me, this is the only thing I actually want. He looks at my neck before he touches it so the action seems deliberate. His palm is a brand against my skin.

“The second time I fell in love, it was with your brother. He can somehow make any problem I’m having seem frivolous and minuscule. It’s like he’s teaching me how to live a carefree, happy life. He’s teaching me how to love myself for the first time. I think I’m becoming a better person, just being around him.” His throat is thick with emotion, each word sounding more intimate than the last. He smiles at me and I want him. “If you play a role in that, if you’re making that possible for me, then I don’t have to pretend to be okay with it.”

He comes back inside himself right in front of me, weakly jerking his hand back like he overstepped a boundary. I smooth my hand up his arm to calm him and feel his muscles unclench beneath the touch. All of his compliments, his warm feelings for Souji, the unconditional praise and acceptance, they intoxicate me as if they were intended for me.

“Yosuke,” I breathe, and he shivers. “It’s not Ai-chan that I want to be with. I want to be with”

“Yu? Where…?”

Souji. He pads into our room, rubbing an eye with the heel of his hand. With his other, he reaches for me, calling my name softly until I grab him and hush him, I’m here, go to sleep. Yosuke sees himself out.


	2. i used to have a heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> darkness, darkness everywhere, do you feel all alone?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this dynamic was a ton of fun and i loved workin with everyone's insecurities. i hope this rings true for some of you and you enjoy this as much as i enjoyed writin it! thanks for stickin around.

I think I pretty much knew what kind of adult I was going to be when I was sixteen years old. Spending my life travelling ensured that the only conversations I was good at having were ones where I said goodbye. When my parents sent Souji and I away for a year to live with our uncle in Inaba, I was prepared to never see them again. That was a dark time for us. Making friends at a school we’d only be attending for a year seemed like a set up to me, but Souji loved playing the friendly neighbor. It was the only way he could hide.

Fights happen and I’ve been expecting this one. It was only a matter of time before Yosuke let it slip about his high school crush. An S.O.S. from Souji during work hours means he didn’t handle it well. That, or Yosuke doesn’t like being passive aggressively interrogated. I check my phone the whole way home, waiting for an “it’s OK, NVM” text any second, but one never comes. When I approach our building, I can hear them arguing from outside, their voices carried out the open windows. When I barge in, Souji is frigid in the center of the room. Yosuke’s there, shouting, “It’s easy when you’re perfect all the time and everyone wants you!” My vision tunnels. I storm in and grab Souji’s wrist, pulling him away. After tossing him into our room, I wheel on Yosuke with an authoritative finger jab.

“ _Stay here_. Sit down and chill out.” I can tell he’s half out the door.

When Souji and I are alone, he breaks down in ways only I can recognize. He sits at the foot of the bed, rigidly at first, then gradually hunches in on himself as time progresses. He reaches for me and pulls me next to him.

“Don’t leave,” he warns. I wasn’t about to. “Did you know he went to high school with us?”

“It doesn’t matter. This fight wasn’t about that anyway, right?”

“No. He thinks he’s inferior to everyone, have you noticed?” Souji says, flippantly, a hand covering his mouth. “He won’t even apply for that promotion because he’s terrified of rejection. He can’t see how capable he is, how charming and kind. Who cares what he was like in _high school?_ ”

And Souji means it when he says it, but Yosuke lying has made him nervous. Something else bothers me though, something that burrowed into the anxious terrain of my heart.

“Promotion?”

Souji looks confused. “He didn’t tell you? He wants to apply for regional manager.”

I’m not surprised he didn’t tell me. I am, however, surprised that it hurts this much.

“Souji,” I murmur against his shoulder.

“Yes?”

I could tell him “I’m falling in love with Yosuke,” like it’s not a big deal. It’s what Souji wants too, isn’t it? For us to always love the same things?

“Are you happy?” is what I ask instead.

“Yes,” he gushes, kneading my thigh with his trained hands. “I never knew there was someone else who could complete me the same way you do. Having you both close to me, I could never be happier.”

The sound of the front door shutting is too loud for our tiny apartment. Reflexively, I pull Souji into my chest. I know how uncomfortable he gets in empty rooms.

 

Yosuke won’t let me in, so I enter on my own.

“How did you get in here?!” he exclaims, throwing off a pair of glasses I’ve never seen before.

“Souji gave me the keys.”

“How is he?”

“You walked out on him. It took him a while to fall asleep.”

And I spent three hours convincing him I’ll be there when he wakes up. Yosuke looks guiltily away. I take my coat off and sit on his couch just as he stands.

“Ah yes, please sit down,” he drones sarcastically, storming into the kitchen. “Do you want a beer? I want a beer.”

“A beer would be fine.”

He opens his bottle and guzzles half of it right away, then collapses next to me on the couch. He sat down in such a way that his left leg overlaps mine. When he sucks on the bottleneck, it makes an echoing wet sound. I welcome the coolness of my own drink, the glass soaked with condensation. We don’t talk about the fight at first. He finishes a bottle, I finish a bottle. He opens a second round for me first, then himself.  

“I couldn’t stay,” he admits, tipping back a swallow. “I needed to clear my head. Sitting alone and stewing in my feelings wouldn’t have helped.”

“What feelings were those?”

Yosuke doesn’t seem to be breathing. I can practically see the noose tightening around his neck.

“Sometimes, I feel like I was tossed overboard at birth and my whole life I’ve just been trying to keep my head above water. Being around Souji makes me realize that I’m drowning, you know? Cause the second he leaves, I feel stranded.”

It’s funny, it’s really funny that he said that. If only he knew why I’m rubbing my face with my hands, _laughing_. He winces, depressed looking.

“Oh my God, you do have emotions.”

I wipe my eyes and nod shallowly. “Sorry, I’m not...making fun of you.”

Yosuke smiles a little now, hiding behind his beer. “Honestly. I never thought I could meet someone who terrifies me more than my father.”

I nod, sagelike. “Souji can definitely make you feel worthless with a glance, that’s for sure.”

“Yeah! Last week, I saw this kid lifting a pack of gum from the checkout aisle. When I didn’t report him, Souji gave me this look. I swear, in his eyes I could see all this crushing disappointment and disapproval. I felt like I’d been caught with gay porn all over again.”

I muffle a second laugh against my palm. “That happened to you?”

“Oh, yes. I’d rather not talk about it.”

Gay porn. Souji shared that with me a few times before it became apparent that it didn’t interest me. We watched a video to prove that non-gay porn didn’t interest me, either. The beer fizzes down the back of my throat, carbonation running up my nose.

“You know, you’re pretty cute when you smile,” Yosuke tells me. “A real smile, not that snarky, evil thing you do.” He freezes. “Was that okay to say? I mean, I’m not crossing any lines here, right?”

Souji’s smile must look right at home on my face, I’m sure. I put my arm along the back of the couch, the beer on the table, directly on the wood.

“You know, letting that kid off the hook isn’t going to help your chances for promotion.”

“S-Souji told you?” Yosuke flinches against me, picking at the label on his bottle.

“Of course he did. Why didn’t you?”

“Well, it’s just, uh, y’know,” he stammers. “I didn’t want you to think that I’m...doing all of this just to get a promotion.”

“You mean sleeping with my brother? Oh, I’m sorry, I thought you were doing that for my sake.”

“I didn’t want you to think that I need to ask for favours to achieve anything!”

Ah. There it is. I lean back, assessing where Yosuke has shrunk away from me. I withdraw a little bit myself.

“Besides,” Yosuke’s still muttering. “I burdened you once already. You helped me out a lot with those girls, y’know?”

A sick, bitter feeling bubbles up inside me. What would Souji say? He’d probably be reassuring. _Don’t worry, Yosuke, you’re not a burden. You can always come to me when you need to talk, Yosuke._ As if. Is that what Yosuke wants me to say? Is that what he’s waiting for, all doe-eyed and eager, petting my knee? I shift away, physically recoiling from his touch.

“Is this how you got your Father to retire? Toast in the morning with extra charm?”

Yosuke visibly pulls back, moving to sit up and put distance between us once again. But I can’t stop talking. It’s so easy to reduce him to nothing, to pinpoint all the things he hates about himself and break them down, one by one.

“You haven’t changed since high school, Yosuke. Tell me, how long does it take you to put on this face in the morning?”

I’m flinching internally with each word, prepared for him to hate me.

“You knew!” he shouts, all shook up. “You remembered me!”

“Of course I did. After all, I spent a year keeping Souji away from you.”

“What?” Like he’s seeing ghosts.

“Oh come on. You would’ve destroyed him back then.”

He clenches his fist around his bottle. I forgot he was still holding it. He’s gone all serious, with brooding eyes that make me feel so sad, like I actually hurt his feelings.

“Don’t do this,” he growls threateningly. “You don’t want to go there with me, man.”

But the worst part is, I do. Here I am, outside of my familiar cocoon of hand signals and meaningful glances, vocalizing how I _really_ feel.

“You were so insecure, you convinced yourself people actually liked you.” I smile when I say it, exactly the way Yosuke hates. “How do you think Souji would have handled your inevitable abandonment once you realized you couldn’t come out as gay?”

“You didn’t even know me!”

“I knew enough.”

“And now?” As if my opinion of him matters now.

I regard him carefully, thinking _he’ll leave, he’ll leave._ He can’t even sit still.

“I think you idolize Souji. I think your memories of him keep you tethered. So much so that you can’t see how much power you have over him. I won’t let you just walk out.”

“Right. Of course.” Yosuke’s lips are tight around each sound. “You love him, after all, more than I ever could. How could a year in high school possibly compare to 9 whole months in gestation?”

Love him? Love Souji? I’ve never thought about it like that. A coin flips in my mind and Souji comes up heads.

“We only went to school together for a year,” Yosuke reminds me. “But I never forgot the two of you, not once. I thought…”

He looks far away and pale, fading into the off-white paint of his livingroom like he’s been here too long and the walls have started growing around him.

“When I graduated, I thought I could become the kind of person Souji would be interested in. I didn’t know I’d run into him again, it’s not like I stalked him or anything! But, just in case there’d be a next time, I wanted him to notice me.”

I noticed you, I think, seeing him as he was back then, all awkward and disheveled with his tie too loose. I noticed you every day, pedalling your bike uphill with your headphones on like nothing mattered except the destination. When you passed us, you kept your head down. You sat by the window in homeroom and doodled during lectures and when the teacher called on you, you never knew the answer.

“You had no right,” he hisses, cutting into me. “You had no right to judge me. As if you were so much better as a teenager! You lurked in Souji’s shadow like you owned him, flaunting your authority over him by regulating his friends. Did you do that for his benefit, or yours?”

“You don’t understand Souji.”

I guess part of me is waiting for the sound of the door slamming shut, but when Yosuke launches at me, it’s to push me off the couch, not throw me out. He’s straddling me, squeezing my shirt so tightly the collar cuts into my neck. He looks feral and damaged beyond repair.

“No, I don’t understand _you_.”

 

Later that night, I shower alone. Solitude is cruel; Silence is so much louder when no one else is in the room. When I look in the mirror, I see a face. It is not my face. This body, with the birthmark on the back of the neck and the scar along the wrist, is not my own, or Souji’s. It belongs to neither of us, it is simply a skin we share. Yet when I look in the mirror, I see Souji staring back at me. The little wrinkles and scars and things that differentiate me fall away and I am nothing more than a _fake_. His voice buzzes in my ears, this lovely, comfortable sound that could so easily be coming from me.

_You’re not me._

I try to drown myself in the shower.

 

Souji doesn’t waste any time getting Yosuke to forgive him. He messages him. He calls him and leaves the most noble voice mails I’ve ever heard, saying things in his _concerned_ voice like, “It’s raining tomorrow, Yosuke. Don’t forget to bring your umbrella to work. I miss you. I hope I’ll see you at lunch.” I hate those messages. When Yosuke finally calls him back, he locks himself in our room and talks so low that I can’t hear.

Within the week, the entire fight is brushed off and we’re lounging in the kitchen like everything’s fine. Yosuke’s started looking at me more. He watches me when I take phone calls, staring through the doorway into our room. I can feel his analytical gaze on my hands when I play Starcraft, or on my back when I cook. He’s scrutinizing me as if he needs to define me. When he finally asks to have sex, it’s after dinner, after the dishes have all been washed. He’s tapping his foot nervously, hip cocked like he’s on tv.

“Yosuke, if you really want to do this with me, Yu will be there,” Souji reminds him.

He says, “Partner, I know.”

Says, “It was only weird when I didn’t know Yu, but now I do, so. Let’s do it.”

He winks like the threesome is his idea.

Honestly, Yosuke falls apart. It’s obvious that he wants to be on top, but Souji tickles him until he submits. They crawl on top of each other and I’m forgotten. Yosuke kisses Souji’s lips again and again, blinking through it like he can’t stop himself from looking. He moves the hair in Souji’s face so he can kiss there, too. Souji takes his virginity on top of the blankets and he falls to ribbons of desire.

I am in the room the way old photographs are in the room. Like a family antique, I am collecting dust. I remove my polo shirt, then my belt, and the clink-whizz of that gets their attention. Souji moans when he remembers I’m there, touching my shoulder and pulling me close. Yosuke looks at my chest, then my cock where it’s bobbing out of my pants. It takes him a second of staring to decide that he wants to touch me. When he does, he grabs my waistband and pulls me toward his face.

He sucks me off like he’s starved, squeezing his eyes shut tight to take me down his throat. I pull his bangs off his forehead so I can see his expression, lewd and vulnerable. With Souji thrusting slowly inside him he looks like someone else entirely. Souji’s panting behind him, pushing his head into my groin, talking to him.

“Suck his cock, just like that. Does he taste good?”

Yosuke moans a watery, vibrato sound that feels incredible around me. His tongue comes out like he’s trying to taste more so he can give Souji an honest answer. I touch his neck, feeling the wall of muscle strained around my shaft and his throat convulses, spraying spit and precum as he chokes. _Shit_. I yank out and he cries from the loss, rubbing my thighs and abs like he needs to touch me.

“That was _so sexy_ , Partner,” Souji cries, burying his face in Yosuke’s spine. His tone is reverent and in awe. “I can’t believe you like sucking him that much.”

Yosuke’s still pawing at my skin. His middle finger dips into my belly button, his right hand is curled in my pubic hair. I grab both his hands, supporting his weight while he continues to worship my erection, sealing his lips around the tip of me. His eyelashes flutter when I pull his hands up my chest. He’s trying to tell me something with his gaze. If only I could speak to him in glances and gestures, tell him with my hands how much I love his mouth. But Souji doesn’t have a face like the one Yosuke’s wearing and I can’t read the subtext in the wetness of his eyes. I hold his hands to my neck as I push down his throat. His jaw stretches to accommodate me while his fingers press against my windpipe, harder and harder.

Souji comes inside him, uttering the cutest little moan. When he pulls out, there’s a thin rope of cum along the wilting tip of his penis. Yosuke turns away from me, leaving me breathless and on the verge of climax. I’m too red to say anything and the room is spinning, anyway. The blankets beneath me feel miles away and my hands are numb where they’ve fisted them. There are voices around me, crawling up my neck towards my ear. _...let him, Partner. Look at you, you’re so wet._ I’m soaking through the comforter. Souji grabs my hand and our skin melts together.

“Look, Yu.”

Yosuke’s penis drips in Souji’s hand, his butt coming shortly off the table in seek of friction. He angles his hips toward me and Souji chuckles darkly.

“He wants you inside him,” he whispers, half in my head. “He’s crying just thinking about it.”

“S-stop!” Yosuke shudders. “I’m fine, just. Just jerk me off.”

I turn lecherous, crawling up Yosuke’s torso so I can growl in his ear. “But _Partner_ , isn’t that _boring?_ ”

He shuffles up a little in my arms like he wants to run away, but his eyes are anything but scared when they meet mine. He looks like he can’t handle how much he hates me. My dick twitches against him, right where it’s pressed into his thigh.

“You want me that bad?” he whispers, voice low enough that Souji can’t hear.

The room darkens in my periphery, colors bleeding off the walls until everything is in shadow. Yosuke is the only light in the room, so bright I can’t look at him. When I hold his hips and pull them toward me, my movements feel sluggish. There’s a flash near my face and a strong grip grabs my jaw. Yosuke is talking, the center of his mouth illuminated and glowing. His words glitch right through me as my form begins to blur. My arms, my jaw, my mouth. Everywhere he touches sparks my skin, the atmosphere around me humming like static.

Souji is here. I can feel him nearby, radiating a focused, calm energy. I know this warm, sweeping feeling; the feeling of him coming to me like he’s homesick. He wraps himself around my back, runs his loving hands down Yosuke’s arms.

“Don’t fight,” he whispers as if I’m in pain. “Yosuke, I’ll suck you instead, how’s that?”

Yosuke doesn’t answer him, can’t even look away from me. He’s looking into my eyes like a wild animal and I’m searching his irises for words he can’t say. Souji looks down and sees that I’m pushing inside him, opening him up with my dick. He clutches my shoulders in excitement and leans over to watch. Yosuke is too tight for someone who just got fucked, but soaking in Souji’s semen has made him pliable. I gyrate my hips until I’m all the way inside him, making his spine arch from the pressure. He closes his eyes, throwing me out of his atmosphere, and parts his lips. A great gasp of an inaudible sigh tumbles brokenly out of him. One of his hands leaves my face to find Souji’s. He grips it desperately, like it will save him. When I start thrusting, it’s with a faster pace than Souji used. He falls away from me, crumpling limply on the bed, making Souji feel sorry for him. It works, to my disgust. Souji kisses the cries off his tongue until he’s moaning weakly.

Souji’s comfort is an act of love in itself. Being on the receiving end of his gentle smile and whispered praise is instantly gratifying. He hovers angelically near Yosuke, stroking his hair and complimenting his body. I watch them both get off on it; Yosuke near-coming from the sound of his voice and Souji dripping all over my pillowcase when he tells Yosuke for the third time how much he likes me. “You’re so lucky, Partner. What does it feel like to have him inside you? Is it deep? Does it hurt? You’re leaking.”

I hear it in the cues, a missable nest egg in the moment. It’s on the crest of my thrust, pushed out of Yosuke’s throat like I fucked it out of him. “Yu.” He whispers the sound of my name, eyes closed. I lean towards him, straining to hear it again. Souji goes quiet, watching me.

“Yu, ugh,” Yosuke winces with a little jerking movement.

Souji’s stopped petting him, distracted by me. “You look…”

I know how I look. Embarassing. I press my face against Yosuke’s chest, not wanting them to see it. I kind of realize that Souji’s getting up when someone’s touching my hair, so it must be Yosuke. He tickles the base of my neck while his heartbeat pounds in my ear. I can feel his dick against my stomach, a long, burning thing catching on my belly button. Souji re-enters with two glasses of water. He pulls me up so I can drink. Yosuke eagerly gulps his, but I don’t need it.

“Yu,” Souji insists, snuggling up next to me.

He touches my face, leaning in to steal my body heat. He looks so composed, even when I’m still thrusting shallowly into Yosuke.

“Drink. You’ve been sweating.” He presses the glass against my lip.

I open my mouth against the rim and let him slowly pour me a mouthful. I stop thrusting, which captures Yosuke’s attention and I pull my hands off his waist to wipe at the trails of water running down my chin, neck, chest. Yosuke sits up in my lap and I help support him. He’s staring at the wetness on my neck, entranced, his darting tongue red and warm. Souji drops the glass on the bed, where it wobbles and rolls off. I can feel Yosuke’s teeth on my shoulder, close enough to my neck to be intimate. His hair gets in my eyes, Souji’s eyes. God, those eyes are an angry sky. As Souji presses closer I see stormclouds approaching the sea of my soul. Thundering, lightning, whitegold in the gloom.

“You love him,” he whispers, kissing my ear. “Because I love him.”

Souji’s lips electrocute me with each touch. His voice is a blessing and a curse as it says, so quietly against my mouth, “I am you and you are me.” Paralyzed, I let Yosuke suck a bruise into my neck. Souji’s kiss blows through me, sucking out all the air in my lungs and husking me out completely. When he pulls away, I fall out of Yosuke, screaming, grabbing for his arms like an infant. I feel hollow. Whatever’s left of me is gone, drying on Yosuke’s belly, soon to be washed off like a dark stain.

 

The idea comes to me in the last hour of the morning, when I’m apprehensive about waking up. Yosuke’s rolled across the bed with my half of the blankets, letting me shiver quietly in the air. I could talk to Sawada before the meeting today. He trusts my judgement, I think. All I’d have to do is put in a good word, the family name has already made Yosuke a shoe-in for the position.

Souji’s awake. I hear his little gaspy inhale, a waking breath. He rubs his eyes open and looks surprised to see Yosuke curled around his side. I help him shimmy away so he can get out of bed without waking him. Yosuke doesn’t wake, but there’s a tense second where he cringes from the loss. I give him a pillow to latch onto instead and watch him deliriously find it with his eyes closed. Souji chuckles, pulling his pants on.

“You used to do that for me,” he says. “When we were kids.”

“You’d kick in your sleep, otherwise.”

What would it be like, working in the same office as Yosuke? We’d have to commute together. Would that be so bad, though? A few extra hours, just the two of us? He rolls over, flipping the sheet off his chest like he’s on fire.

“Look,” I whisper, pointing to a kiss mark Souji made on his collarbone. “It’s red.”

Souji looks subtly excited, half-smiling at me and sneaking over to my side of the mattress.

“Oh!” He motions me closer, hovering near a clear imprint of my teeth on Yosuke’s shoulder. “Looks painful, Yu. You’re too rough with him.”

“He likes it. I think that’s what made him come.”

Souji has to think about it, but in the end he agrees.  
“We should have given him something warm to sleep in,” I mutter, pulling the blanket back up to his chin.

“Are you blushing?”

Souji tugs on my bangs, staring at my cheeks like he’s looking in the mirror. He smiles, happy and knowing, even when I swat him away.

“Ah! You are!”

God. I grab my clothes and change in the bathroom.

 

Yosuke gets the promotion. I knew before he did, of course, but I let him break the news to Souji. He comes over with sake and a smile that he wears better than his twenty-thousand yen jeans.

“Guess what?” he sings when he comes in.

I take the sake into the kitchen for him so he can fall into Souji’s arms.

“I got the promotion!”

“That’s great!” Souji says, and even from the kitchen I can hear that he’s lying. It makes me hurry with the drink.

They’re curled up on the couch, Yosuke comfortably seated on Souji’s lap. He doesn’t pay any attention when I re-enter with the tokkuri and pour for both of them. He’s happily chatting away, dragging an idle finger along Souji’s shoulder in zig-zags, not noticing how shadowed Souji’s face has become. When Souji looks away from him, he jolts.

“Congratulations, Yosuke,” I say, taking my place on the floor by the table.

Yosuke finally sees me, but only because of the sake. He pulls Souji over, radiant and blinded by happiness. He can’t tell that anything’s wrong, but I see how dim the room has become. Souji’s anxiety washes over me secondhand. Yosuke thanks me as he pours for me and I watch Souji watch him the whole time.

“I guess this means you two will be co-workers,” he points out.

“Oh!” The realization dampers Yosuke’s giddiness. “That’s right.”

“You better work extra hard, then. I won’t go easy on you just because I’ve seen you naked.”

“Dude!”

It’s an empty threat. I won’t even be his supervisor when he transfers. The sake is chill in my mouth, but I don’t taste it. Souji’s worrying me, staring at his cup, withdrawn.

“Have you told your father yet?” I ask.

“Nah, I wanted to go home to break the news to him in person.”

Probably a good idea. My meetings with Hanamura senior were always brief and from afar, but I remember his serious, professional demeanor. He got work done efficiently and without unnecessary frills. While I’m sure he’ll be very proud of his son for surpassing him at such a young age, it could cause resentment, especially since he stepped down to make room for Yosuke in the Inaba store.

“Yu, will you be packing Yosuke lunch, too?” Souji asks, quietly.

Yosuke perks up. “Oh, yeah! Will you? Please?”

It’s true that I usually pack lunch for Souji, since I’m the better cook and Souji can be prone to eating unhealthy things if left to feed himself. I’d be lying if I said that I hadn’t thought about making lunch for Yosuke, since he seems to enjoy my meals so much. His praise is different from Souji’s, unexpected and rare. Hard to earn. Recently, cooking for him has become more enjoyable. He hovers near the kitchen, clearly interested in what I’m making, yet never crowding my space. His quiet, excited company is comforting, somehow, probably just because he’s there. Yosuke’s looking at me with barely contained excitement and near-pleading eyes.

“It’s a lot of work, you know,” I lie.

“But you’re so good at it!”

The alcohol makes me warm. If my face is flushed it’s due to a growing buzz, nothing more. I look away so they won’t notice and get the wrong idea.

“I’ll have to pack them separately so people at the office won’t suspect anything.” (Like what? That we’re together? Are we?) “But, I guess it’s not too inconvenient to make a third lunch before bed.”

I’ll need to tell Souji to double our groceries, but with the Junes discount it’s not like that’s an unmanageable expense. He’s still sulking, though, looking terribly concerned next to Yosuke and it’s not hard to guess why. I want to tell him he’s not being abandoned, but now is not the time, not with Yosuke deserving the spotlight and looking so secure.

“Be right back,” I murmur.

On my way to the bathroom I touch Souji’s hair in what I hope is a reassuring gesture, but when I lean down to kiss his temple, he moves away a fraction of an inch. Not a good sign. If Yosuke notices, I can’t tell. From the bathroom, I can hear their voices. Souji says, “I’ll miss having lunch with you” and Yosuke’s reassurances slide under the door in sickly sweet coos. When Souji says, “make sure you thank Yu for getting you the promotion,” my stomach turns. Yosuke is furious upon my return, looking at Souji like he can’t believe him, blindsided and caught off guard. Pierced through the heart as thanks for letting his guard down.

“What’s going on?” I ask, pretending I wasn’t eavesdropping on them.

“Souji says you got me the job,” Yosuke spits. “Is that true?”

“No.”

Souji stands up, suddenly restless. “Please. You placed so many bugs in people’s ears it was practically brainwashing.”

I don’t look at him, my focus completely absorbed by Yosuke. I remember his words, so insistent and honest, _I didn’t want you to think that I need to ask for favours to achieve anything._

“They were already considering you for the position when I put in a good word. But that’s all, Yosuke.”

His expression is changing from an angry red to an embarrassed pink. When he bites his lip, I think it’s to keep himself from smiling. Souji falls back onto the couch, crossing his arms like he needs us to see him, but he can be pacified later, after I’ve slowed my heartbeat and gotten this moment out of my head.

“Really?” Yosuke asks, toeing the floor. “You did that for me?”

“I did.”

The way Souji’s staring at me, you’d think he'd never seen my smile before. Yosuke rubs the back of his neck and I wish he’d make eye contact with me. I wish he’d stop hiding his graciousness like I don’t deserve it.

“T-thanks, man,” he says, coyly.

“Souji,” I start. “You’ll have no problem making new friends at work. You never do.”

I see his walls go up before I realize that was the wrong thing to say. It came out too bitter.

“I shouldn’t have introduced you,” he states. “I should have known you’d take him away from me.”

“Hey! I’m still in the room,” Yosuke interjects.

He probably wants to say more. I can tell that he’s getting sucked in, but I won’t let him.

“That’s not what’s happening here.”

“Isn’t it? Isn’t this what you always do? I give and you take!”

There it is, the thorn in his side. That’s me, nestled in the flesh between his ribs, a sharp point of contrition. I’m nothing more than an annoyance - an itch under his skin.

“I never wanted this!” I shout, Yosuke recoiling in my periphery when I point at him. Good, some part of me thinks. “You brought him back into our lives, remember? You practically baited me, made me think it was okay for _someone other than you to like me_ and I trusted that you wouldn’t do this again.”

Souji gets to have friends, Souji gets to have lovers, these things come easily to Souji, who can be a hundred different people at once. What does Yu get? Unsociable Yu, the bored one, the selfish one, the tagalong who made his home in the shade of Souji’s shadow. I just want to be _left alone_.

“Um, guys? Maybe we should all calm down--”

“‘Again?’” Souji tramples over Yosuke’s frantic attempts to intervene. “Have you forgotten what happened with Kanji?”

“Don’t.”

My blood pressure rises to compensate for all the ice in my veins and I can feel Yosuke’s eyes on me, boring into me. Can he see right through us? Is he seeing us now for who and what we really are, the two of us together, as fucked up and cliche as every latch-key kid who never felt secure with anyone except each other? I feel in this moment the way I’ve always felt: stranded.

“I do these things for you!” Souji says, eyes glistening behind the cobweb curtain of his bangs. “You say you want to be alone, but I know you and I know that you need them just as much as I do.”

What? I think, shaking. What?

“You’re wrong,” I growl, fingernails cutting into my elbows where I’m clutching them too tightly. “They’re annoying. _You’re_ annoying. You’re nothing but a burden.”

The walls are closing in and I choke on the lack of air in the room. Fighting with Souji is like yelling into a mirror and I can’t stand to look at him anymore. Yosuke hangs so limply across the room, awkwardly fiddling with one of my Featherman figmas. The apartment is too heavy and Yosuke is there, so it’s fine if I leave, right? I can do that, now. I turn around, scared of walking out but knowing it’s the best thing I can do.

“Where are you going?” Souji asks my back.

“Out.”

The door slams hard behind me and I cringe at the sound. I don’t know what I was expecting to feel when I left. Empowered, maybe. Justified in my need for space and fresh air. Isn’t that the way most people feel when they walk away during a fight? Time out, let’s take a break to cool down. The summer night is too muggy for that, though. Humidity fills my lungs and I’m breathing hard, sucking it in while I storm down to the street. I don’t go far. There isn’t anywhere I want to go, anyway. I sit at the bottom of our steps and put my head down, between my knees.

“Yu!”

I jerk, turning around. That sounded like…

“Oh, good.”

Yosuke. He appears at the top of the steps with this sad smile on his face like he feels sorry for me.

“What are you doing?!” I shout, jumping up.

“I thought I’d come check on you.” He flinches.

“ _So you left Souji?_ ” I meet him halfway up the staircase, exasperated. “Haven’t you learned anything, yet?”

“Y-you walked out, so…” Realization hits him and his expression changes.

“Because I thought you’d stay!”

I have to go back. I push past Yosuke, but he stops me, grabbing my arm reflexively.

“Wait.” His fingers are tight in my sleeve.

I stop, mostly because his voice sounded so small and soft. It struck me like lightning, like a speeding car. If I turned around, what kind of expression would I see on his face?

“I’m sorry.” He drops his hold to my wrist, then finds my hand and I have to turn around and look at him but I’m paralyzed by his touch. “I realize that I may have been unfair to you, before.”

I can feel him at my back, coming in close and too hot with his body heat seeping through my polo. My pulse quickens in the center of my palm, right underneath his thumb. Can he feel it? There’s a warm breath of air on the back of my neck turning my spine into a live wire.

“I think I understand you, now,” he says near my ear.

When he presses his forehead against my shoulder, I shiver.

“Yosuke.” My voice is raspy, unlike me. “I have to go to Souji.”

He releases my hand to rub up my arm in a comforting touch that I’m not used to. The weight of his palm relaxes me enough to move. I turn to face him and God, no one has ever looked at me the way he’s looking at me. His eyes are so soft on mine I can feel the pulsing walls of my heart expanding to make room for him. One of his hands, the one he had on my arm, works its way into my hair. The touch of his fingertips, the light scratch of his nails by the base of my skull. I open for him like a lock he just found the combination to.

I can’t respond. Not when he drops his heavy-lidded gaze to my lips, not when he leans in, not when he kisses me. He kisses me like it’s the first time, his lips slack against mine and slightly wet. The sound I breathe against his mouth can hardly be called a gasp, it’s so small and soft. When I part my teeth he slides in tenderly, slowly, just the slightest touch of tongue. No one has ever kissed me like this, I think beneath his hands and mouth. This kiss is an apology, an agreement, a revival. When he pulls away, I press our foreheads together, not quite chasing his lips. He pants between us breathlessly, stroking the back of my neck. I could tell him I love him. Just say it. He speaks first.

“Let’s go back together,” he whispers.

 

School hallways always smell the same. The rubbery scent of basketballs and eraser dust permeate the air, spiced by the musk of puberty seeping out of every classroom. I remember the way room 1-2 smelled; a combination of all of the above and sex, only because I was making Kanji Tatsumi wet on the teacher’s desk. It wasn’t even because I liked him. His face flushed bright red under my hands, not Souji’s, and that was enough for me at the time. The fact that I was lying didn’t even faze me.

“Souji-senpai,” he muttered.

I took the name and tried it on. “Yeah.”

I entered him the way I did the first time, pushing him open without lubricant, because I didn’t know any better at seventeen. Kanji reached for me, tried to hold me. I let him cling to me and moan into my shoulder.

“S-Senpai,” he gasped. “More.”

His hips shook and his thighs tensed. I remember the slopes of his body, the curvature of his shoulders and the scrunching of his belly that glistened with a sheen of precum. When he looked at me, he saw the shell of me, the outside layer identical to my brother’s. He saw what he wanted to see: the boy he loved, Souji, thrusting into him, sticky and real. Then there were footsteps outside and the door opened. Kanji squeezed me, scared.

“Yu? Wha-?”

Enter my doppelganger, frozen in the doorway like a snapshot in time.

“Sorry,” I grunted. “I’ll be done in a second.”

Kanji’s face and voice, so strained and vulnerable, haunt me still.

“S-Senpai…?”

I remember the strength of his grip on my arms, it was cutting off my circulation. I fought back a shameful moan, pulled out and came on the floor. My semen puddled on the filthy tile.

“Kanji stopped coming to school.” Souji remembers.

Yosuke’s clutching his ankle, looking down. We’re curled up on our bed after finding Souji hiding in it. We’d dragged him out of the blankets and turned the lamp on in preparation for this conversation.

“I had no idea,” Yosuke whispers. “There were rumors about Tatsumi-kun, sure, but it was never known why he dropped out so suddenly.”

I’m so sure he’ll hate me this time. The truth about that dark part of our past was a final gift to Yosuke, the one thing we’d never shared with anyone else. I tear my eyes away from where he’s shuffling on the bed, picking at the aesthetically ripped holes in his jeans.

“You were seventeen,” he winces.

Souji turns to me. “Yu, I’m sorry.”

I look for his hand and grab it, holding it in my lap. It’s the most acknowledgement I’m capable of giving him and I hope it suffices as a similar apology. His smile conveys his understanding more than words.

“Just so we’re all clear,” Yosuke speaks up. “That trick won’t work on me.”

“What trick?” Souji asks.

“The cliche twin thing. Pretending to be each other. It won’t work.”

“Oh? And why’s that?” I inquire.

“I can tell you both apart, no problem!” Yosuke laughs at me like that was a stupid question. “Don’t look at me like that, I’m serious! First of all, your smiles are completely different. That’s obvious. But also, your mannerisms are total opposites! Souji acts like he owns the room, but you keep to your space and don’t draw any attention to yourself.”

“Oh! That’s true, Yu. You always want to sit in the back of theaters. And you never let anyone buy you anything.”

“You buy too much!”

“What can I say? I’m generous.”

Yosuke hm’s, a songbird sound. We both turn our attention to where he’s sprawled out sideways on the bed, pillowing his head on his arm.

“What’s up?” Souji asks, leaning back.

“Nothing.”

I want to know. He’s hiding his face in his bicep. It’s such a sweet sight, especially against the rose filter of the bedside lamp, casting shadows over his smile.

“Come on,” I insist.

Yosuke’s quiet, looking between us. He considers Souji, then me.

“Just thinking that I got real lucky. How many people can say they have two sexy boyfriends waiting for them at home?”

Boyfriends? I slap him with a pillow.

“Aren’t you getting ahead of yourself, Hana-chan?”

“What?!” He squawks, looking to Souji for backup. “Aren’t we boyfriends? Don’t you want to be?”

“The three of us?” Souji checks.

“Don’t drag me into this,” I grumble. It’s in vain. Yosuke touches my knee, forcing me to raise my gaze to his peering, insistent face.

“The three of us.”

Can I do this? Can I take what Souji, what Yosuke--the two most important people in my life, are offering? Can I give them each other in return? If Souji can share Yosuke _and_ me, surely I can share them, too. If Souji is the other part of me, the half of myself that I can’t hold, I must posses half of him, as well. His loneliness, his clinginess, his desperate need to be helpful, to affect people--aren’t those all traits I could just as easily have possessed? All this time, he was bringing people into my life to appease the unconfronted loneliness inside me. His selflessness eased my pain, yet he expected nothing from me. Can I now be just as selfless and allow him half of this one thing that makes him happy?

“Souji, I...I’m in love with Yosuke.” A blanket of warm, fuzzy nausea settles over me. My head spins.

Souji smiles at me, his cotton grey eyes calm and at peace. “I’m glad. Yu, I’m so glad.”

“I’m glad too,” Yosuke chuckles, a nervous sound. “Still in the room. Sorry.”

I ruffle his hair, proud of him. He pulls away like a kid, tries to fix the hectic mess of his style.

“We cool?” I ask him, a bit sheepish.

“Yeah. More than cool.”

Souji and I are just pieces that don't quite line up. But, with Yosuke, we can form some kind of whole. The vacancy between us closes around him like we've been expecting him all our lives.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> http://grossuke.tumblr.com

**Author's Note:**

> [TUMBLR](http://grossuke.tumblr.com)
> 
> [TWITTER](https://twitter.com/grossuke)


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